


The Situation

by JessaLRynn



Series: Recipes for Disaster [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Humor, M/M, Ruining Your Tropes, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 12:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13951752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessaLRynn/pseuds/JessaLRynn
Summary: To properly serve this exciting treat, you will need a special ingredient. Carefully prepare one ex-Time Agent with movie star looks as per the recipe for "Early Captain Jack". Put a mixture of one pink-and-yellow-human and one Time-Lord-in-leather in an enclosed space until the UST rises. Add the Early Captain Jack. Divide. Flee.





	The Situation

Avalon was a beautiful planet. Jack could concede that much. Still, there were very few planets in the Universe that could be found to be wholly unlovely, and when you had someone with you like his new traveling companions, that figure disappeared to none at all. Rose could find beauty in anything, and the Doctor's intelligent Ship apparently only landed in places that Rose would probably like (at least once they got over the running like hell and exploding things bit).  
  
Jack was a tiny bit over one hundred percent certain that that had something to do with the fact that the pilot was utterly besotted with the 21st century Earth girl.  
  
Still, while the planet's beauty was the excuse he gave for coming here, it had nothing to do with what he really wanted. What he wanted, what he had tried every single one of the thirty-seven times he had come here, was to get into the cloistered panties of the Rapunzel-like princess who was trapped in the tower at the heart of Avalon's capital city.  
  
The only reason he wanted to do it was that it couldn't be done. The reason it couldn't be done was that there were two problems and they were both major. The first was that the Princess was trapped. It wasn't that Jack couldn't get through all the defenses surrounding her - he could, and get out again, too. But the defenses guarding her were also guarded, by a massive computer that couldn't be deceived. And the only people eligible to get past the computer to run the gauntlet that surrounded the girl were "qualified" persons. Which Jack, obviously, was not. The second problem, of course, was that the qualified person who managed to get through the maze of traps and rescue the princess was expected to marry the girl. Which Jack, obviously, was not.  
  
He knew every single thing possible about getting into and out of the palace, now. He'd gotten as far as the door to the woman's boudoir a couple of visits back, for him (which was several generations back for them), so he'd seen every single aspect of the system on his way in. Jack was pretty sure he finally had just the helpers to make sure his plan worked. Plus, there was a bonus if this succeeded.  
  
Jack hadn't been with Rose and the Doctor for very long (according to his mostly broken wrist computer, it had been a week since they rescued him from his stolen Chula ship), but the unresolved sexual tension between the two of them had already started to get to him. He suspected he was allergic to wholesomeness, and the purity of chaste, unconsummated love was going to give him hives.  
  
Or kill his libido, which was much worse.  
  
He worked it all out meticulously in his head, and it made absolutely exquisite sense. Rose, of course, couldn't abide injustice, and the Doctor had this strange sort of knight errant complex that made him perfect for this role. It would have to be done exactly right, of course, the words perfect, the timing impeccable. Only the very best in the Universe would be able to pull this off.  
  
He was Captain Jack Harkness. It didn't get better than that.  
  
And the "Last of the Time Lords" was certain to be "qualified."  
  


*?*

Jack found Rose frowning into a drink in an outdoor cafe. "Hey, Rosie, where's the Doc?"

Rose sighed, then smiled a warm welcome at him as she nudged a scroll-work chair out for him with her foot. Every time she smiled, Jack envied the Doctor just a lot. "Dunno," she said. "Think he broke Rule One. Mind, as soon as something blows up, I'll get told off for 'wanderin' off' and 'bein' jeopardy friendly'." She made an adorably gruff face and mocked a semblance of the Doctor's accent to boot.

Jack laughed as he collapsed into the chair. "You guys are just cute!" he said, shaking his head. "What're you drinking? I'll get the next one." Considering her half-full glass, he made a face. "Or something better, if you prefer."

"Would you?" she said. "Dunno what this is. Ant spray an' bromide, I think, an' those are just the good bits."

Jack waved a server over with a casual hand, ordered the local best - his pronunciation made Rose screw up her face in concentration - and smirked at her. He didn't want to get the girl drunk - that would be very, very wrong, and besides the Doctor would kill him. For all his grinning and manic giddiness, the Doctor gave the distinct impression of one who could easily kill someone fifty different ways... at a time.

They made small talk about the planet, and then, to make Jack's day absolutely perfect, Rose asked, "What's with that tower?" She gestured off across the stark white city, to where the gold and white spire loomed far above the whole world strung out below it.

"They keep the princess there," he said, casually, as if he hadn't been waiting for just such an opening.

"Oh," she said. Then, she did an adorable double-take. "Wait, what do you mean 'keep'? Is it like some kind of sanctuary, or is it a prison?"

"Looks like a perfect gilded cage to me," Jack said. "They do this to one girl in every generation. Lock her up from the day she reaches sexual maturity until the day someone rescues her and marries her."

Rose chewed at her lip, her head tilted in thought. "The girls - do they go for this? I mean, I know I wouldn't, but then they're raised to it... I dunno. It all sounds completely dodgy, Jack."

Jack shrugged artfully. "Yeah, but Rose, it's like you said, they've been brought up like this. I wouldn't let it worry me, if I were you. Besides, it's not like we can do anything about it."

Now Rose frowned at him, the light of battle coming up in her dark eyes. Jack suppressed a grin. "Jack, they don't know any better. How can a girl decide if she approves of something if she doesn't know there's anything else? What about the other girls on this planet? Do they all get locked up?"

"No, of course not," Jack said. "This is a human colony, Rose. You of all people know that human women don't tolerate suppression by their men for very long. Honestly, I'm surprised this fairytale princess routine has survived this long. It's probably what you said. The girls just don't know any better, probably consider it an honor to be chosen."

Now, Rose's eyes blazed with fury. "You mean, it's just some random girl dragged in, not one born with her arse on purple cushions? Taken away from her family, no choices?"

"Well, sure. And whichever man 'rescues' her will be the leader of the people for the next term. I think it's like thirty years or something. They can get divorced after that if they want."

Rose was in a towering temper now. Jack clutched at her arm and had to struggle to keep her quiet as he dragged her around the corner into a more private alleyway. He'd wanted her annoyed, but he hadn't realized she'd feel this strongly about it. "Oh, sure. She wastes her childhood locked in this tower and her youth being this bloke's legitimacy, an' then when he's done with her, he just throws her away? Oh, hell no. It's got to be stopped, at least this once. We're here, we can fix it."

Put that way, Jack actually realized that Rose had a point. This poor kid, locked up for life... Made him seem like a prick, really, for just wanting to seduce her. He reminded himself that his plot had always included helping the girl run away, preferably with all of them financially better off. The Doctor had an expensive hobby in the form of keeping his ship running, after all, and it might be a way Jack could help pay him back for letting the ex-Time Agent stay. Plus, if it worked perfectly, it would also get the Doctor and Rose sorted, a distinct bonus. So he wasn't being a complete bastard, not really.

"If I could just get in there, talk to the girl," Rose said thoughtfully.

The Doctor was going to kill him, Jack realized. The Doctor was going to kill him, bring him back to life, and kill him again. He'd known a torturer who could do that to people, after all, and "the Doctor" probably wasn't just an affectation. "Maybe that's not such a good idea..."

"Don't be a plum, Jack. I'm a big girl, I can look after myself. Look, how would you get in? You've been here before, right?"

"Well, yeah," Jack admitted. "But I couldn't get in, I'm a guy." He sighed as she glowered at him, determined with her eyes and everything else to make him submit. Just whose plot was this, anyway? "Servant's entrance, all right? If you wore blue robes, you'd be taken for a senior servant and expected to be waiting on the princess."

"Great," said Rose, suddenly as happy as a woman grinning like a wolf could be. She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. "I've got my mobile, I'll call you if I get stuck or have any trouble getting her out again."

"How're you gonna reach me?"

"The Doctor hooked up your wrist thingee, the one you've been fixing?"

Jack looked down at his mostly non-functional vortex manipulator. It had been behaving better since they'd been on the TARDIS. Still didn't have temporal or teleport function, but he was working on that. Looked like the Doctor had been working on it, too. "Huh," he said, surprised.

"So it'll be ok," Rose said, and then she was gone.

For all that this had been his idea, Jack was starting to have a bad feeling about this. He left the alley and went to look for the Doctor. Whether it was to start phase two of the plan or simply to rescue the head-strong girl from herself, he just didn't know any more.

*?*

He found the Doctor in the Bazaar, scavenging parts from something that looked like it might have been a Wave-hopper, a few lifetimes and a lunatic owner or two ago. "You know what," the Doctor said to the proprietor, "this thing's just about had it. I'll give you ten credits, if you'll have the whole bloody thing delivered to my ship."

"Ten credits, sir?" the proprietor exclaimed in disgust. "I can't even sell you the tail-fin for ten credits! One hundred and not a jot less."

"I wouldn't give you a jot for the tail fin," the Doctor said. "Look at it, all banged up like that, you'd never be able to straighten it out without retractors and a four-dimensional chainsaw. Twelve. 'Lo, Jack."

Jack tugged urgently at the Doctor's sleeve while the proprietor dubiously went down to ninety credits and the Doctor had to do the hauling away himself.

"What?" said the Doctor to Jack, before turning back to skinning the cheat at the booth alive. "Tell you what. I'll haul it away meself. For ten credits. Got my man Jack here, he can help with that."

"Yeah, but..." Jack said

"I'll not take a jot below 85 for it, sir." They argued back and forth while Jack tried to get the Doctor's attention without having to admit that he might have let their little companion sorta get herself into maybe trouble.

"Look at these temporal displacers. Still fully functional. And the gravitics, all easily brought back on-line."

Jack had had enough at this point. "Those fully functional temporal displacers? They're all stuck on October 26th. S'pose the year's still functional, but what good is it? As for your gravitics, you'll never get them back on-line, since you've removed the stabilizer and replaced it with what looks for all the world like a pancake turner."

The booth was suddenly and irredeemably closed. The Doctor glowered at Jack, then started to chuckle. "What've you got yourself into that you need my help that much, then?" he wondered.

"It's not me," Jack said, wondering if he should stick to the plan or just hit the panic button.

"Where's Rose?" the Doctor asked, glowering down at Jack now, blue eyes blazing.

Panic button.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Doc. She found out about the princess."

The Doctor looked around vaguely. "What princess?" he asked curiously.

"The girl in the tower," Jack explained, gesturing across the city at the looming, obvious architecture.

"What about her?" the Time Lord asked, starting to look more than a little worried.

Jack explained to the Doctor everything he had told Rose - including that she should call the Doctor, and that only girls could get in by the servants' entrance. If this thing was going to go completely to hell, he might as well try to get the plan completed the way it had been intended, right?

"Could probably use the servant's entrance if I made you a eunuch," the Doctor threatened.

Jack blanched. "There's always the rescue," he suggested, as desperate to get this over with as he was to save his bits. Well, almost.

"Rescue?"

"Yeah," Jack explained urgently. "See, that's the reason they've got her locked up - so some heroic, qualified person can rescue her."

The Doctor stared. "Have I ever told ya your entire species makes no sense?" He sank down into his leather jacket, frowning and, Jack hoped, thinking up a good solution.

*?*

Somewhere between deciding against scaling the building and discovering that Rose either couldn't or wouldn't answer her phone, the Doctor got fed up and strode over to the tower, Jack on his heels. "How'm I s'posed to take you with me, then?" the Doctor wondered as they walked. "Don't think you're gettin' outta this."

Jack tugged his braces down so they hung from their clips at his waist, then jerked his t-shirt off over his head. "Now I'm your servant," he said. "I'll pretend to be a deaf-mute or something."

The Doctor shook his head. "Stoop a bit, lad. You're too proud ta be a servant, walkin' around like that." The Time Lord chuckled. "An' you call yourself a con-artist."

"I'm a bad con-artist, Doc, if one girl smiling and one guy glowering at me's gonna make me turn my con, don't you think?"

"I dunno," the Doctor said. "Could be you're just a good bloke, an' too honest is all."

"You take that back," Jack said, pretending to be offended. Actually, he was almost ashamed. It was such an absurd dichotomy. The purpose of being a con-artist was to make people believe in you. But when people like the Doctor and Rose believed in you, you were doomed.

But this con was for their benefit, dammit. He just had to keep telling himself that.

The Doctor stalked up to the guard house, announced he was the Last of the Time Lords, and demanded to be allowed to see the princess. There was the sound of a toilet flushing nearby and a young man who looked like the complete fairy from Disney's Three Musketeers fell out of a trap door in the side of the tower (Jack only knew this because Rose had shown it to them yesterday - and started sobbing over Lady de Winter). The Doctor went over to help the poor man up.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" he asked the guy. The fairy, however, took one look at the Time Lord and ran off screaming.

"Nah," the Doctor said, and turned back to the guard. He was given a clip board, which he scribbled a question mark onto the bottom of, followed up by writing "The Doctor" below it in the most atrocious print the ex-Time Agent had ever seen (which was saying something, as he'd seen his own hand writing).

Some sort of brilliant ray of light scanned over the Doctor, and the guard grunted and gestured at the entrance, but then moved to stop Jack. "He can't go with you," the guard said as the Doctor gestured for Jack to follow him toward the tower.

"He's my servant," the Doctor said. "Goes everywhere I do."

Jack slapped on a look of slavish devotion and proceeded to fawn at the Doctor and straighten the leather jacket. Yum... Leather. The guard continued to look dubious.

"Don't worry," the Doctor continued, grinning wickedly. "He's a eunuch." He made a gesture like a pair of scissors and Jack whimpered.

The guard snickered. "All right. Good luck, mate."

*?*

Two flights up into the tower and Jack dropped the routine, pulled his t-shirt out of his back pocket, and tugged it on over his head. "A eunuch?" he demanded in disgust.

The Doctor chuckled. "Worked, didn't it?" he asked. All at once, they were descended on by something that very strongly resembled a hail storm of pigeons.

Three floors later, the Doctor suddenly said, "You're a good man to have around in a fight, Jack. Think we'll keep you." They'd just finished battling a horde of fighting robots and, between the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and his alien martial arts, Jack had only gotten off a couple rounds with his favorite well-hidden blaster. The robots were scattered all over the floor in quaking, sparking bits.

The Doctor gave the blaster a disparaging glance. "Might haveta train you up a bit, o' course."

Jack, who'd thrived in spite of every rigorous instant of Time Agency training was, nonetheless, absurdly proud. "Would you?"

Five floors after that, Jack was curled up in a corner, cursing and batting at things only he could see. "It's a con!" he admitted.

"I know," the Doctor said, running the sonic screwdriver over him.

"The con was for your benefit, dammit!"

"I know."

"Nobody was supposed to get hurt!"

"I know."

"See, I was going to switch Rose for the princess and sneak me and the princess and her crown jewels out. You could marry Rose and make a run for it at your leisure... although, really, you both need to get laid, so I'd recommend waiting until after the honeymoon. I could get the princess, she could get away, this stupid cloistered fairy tale thing would die a natural death, and we could sell the jewels in New Saskatchewan to keep you in TARDIS parts for a few years yet and set the princess up in a real life on a real planet. And now I'm going to die of a fatal poisoned pigeon bite." Jack shuddered and scrunched his eyes closed. The pain was fading away, so he knew he only had moments - he was probably going numb just before dying. "Just leave me here, Doctor, save yourself!"

The Doctor chuckled. "You are an idiot, Harkness," he said. "On your feet, now, lad."

"Wha?" said Jack, and his head stopped swimming. His eyes fluttered open. "I'm not gonna die?" he asked.

"No, you're not," the Doctor said. "Setting 5874. Draws out poisons. An' setting 332. Cauterizes wounds. You're fine, on your feet, let's go rescue these girls."

Jack straightened, trying to adjust himself and his dignity. Unfortunately, his dignity appeared to have died of the poison even if the rest of him hadn't. He sighed. "Just... um. Forget I said any of that, all right?"

The Doctor rolled his blazing blue eyes and, much to Jack's annoyance, laughed at him.

*?*

They burst through the door at the top of the tower to finally find this cloistered princess in dire need of rescue. Jack had been expecting some sort of grateful welcome, maybe a sobbing, hugging female.

What he wasn't expecting, and what he got, was a room full of scantily-clad females, giggling. The Doctor looked rather startled. "Hello," he said, brightly but rather warily.

The girls all giggled at him. The Doctor looked at Jack and Jack shrugged back. All the girls, every last one of them, sighed. The Doctor frowned. The girls giggled. Jack looked at the Doctor. The girls giggled.

"I think we need Rose for this," the Doctor said. "I don't speak the giggly girl dialect of teenager."

"I hope she doesn't, either," Jack replied. "She's not exactly a teenager, you know."

"Neither are this lot," the Doctor pointed out rather accurately.

"Be nice, Doc," Jack said, and flashed the room his come-hither smile. "Hello, I'm Captain Jack Harkness."

As one, the group of girls all squealed loudly and shrilly, and collapsed in fluttery little heaps, giggling more.

Jack inched closer to the Doctor. The Time Lord frowned. "Which one of you lot is the princess?" he asked.

"That's me," said a very pretty blonde in the middle of the group, and Jack felt his pulse quicken.

"Great," said the Doctor. "Can we talk to you, alone?"

The girls all giggled again. The princess looked thoroughly scandalized. "I think we're going to have quite enough time alone, thank you," she said rather haughtily. "After all, we'll be married." She sighed. "I'm not impressed, you know, I'm not. You talk too much, your accent is appalling, and I imagine I'll have to keep a stable full of men to supplement your short-comings."

"Oi!" the Doctor snapped.

"And that's another thing. How do you expect to rule a planet when all you can do is run around and shout nonsense words at people?" The princess's smile was rather strained. "Mind, you do have a very impressive arse."

Jack slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from joining the rest of the princess's entourage in giggles at that point.

"You can just forget about that," the Doctor said. "I'm here to rescue you, I'm not marryin' anyone, an' when did you see my arse, anyway?"

The girl directed their eyes to a screen at the end of her bed, which was running footage of a scene of the Doctor and Jack making their way up through the tower. Jack supposed those jeans did fit the Doctor rather well when he was running, didn't they? "Oh, why couldn't it have been the young one?" the Princess said with a sigh.

"You can have him," the Doctor said, grandly. The girls all giggled.

"He's not a eunuch?"

"Not s'far as I know. You're not a eunuch, are you Jack?"

"Nope," he said. He gave the princess his best smile and looked her over in a way that had made men, women, and random inanimate objects go weak in the knees all across the cosmos. "Got all my parts and they work very, very well."

"Good," the princess said grandly. "Then I shall keep you with him."

"No, no," Jack said, "we're here to get you out!"

The girl looked at them in complete astonishment. "Why would I want out?" she demanded and she sounded a lot less pretty than she looked. "Are you mad? That daft little girl said the same thing. I can't imagine what any of you are thinking. Why would anyone want out?"

"Freedom to choose?" the Doctor suggested.

"It's over-rated," she said with a bored looking wave of her hand. She even paused to check her nails afterwards. "You'll not be having any affairs, you understand, or you either, servant boy. You can stay in our royal suite, if you like." She looked the Doctor over again, and sneered. "I'll want separate bedrooms, though. I'll expect you to bring me expensive presents, and massage my feet when I am tired. Also, I'll want my mother to live with us, and..."

"Jack?" said the Doctor.

"Yeah?" said Jack.

"What d'ya think about running?" he asked.

"Now, please?" Jack said.

They tore off down the hall, frantically looking for some escape that didn't involve fighting their way back down the tower. A door opened halfway down the corridor and they responded to the hand beckoning them inside.

Rose was there, leaning her head against the wall, and muttering soft swear words under her breath. "Right uppity, isn't she?" Rose asked.

The Doctor grumbled and fell back against the wall, folded his arms over his chest, and sunk about as far into the jacket as he could get without wearing it over his head. "What shortcomings?" he muttered.

Jack listened at the door, only stopping long enough to say, "I'm so, so sorry."

Rose huffed. "This is your fault?" she asked. "How?"

"All his plot," the Doctor grumbled. "Not that he didn't have a good idea or two, 'cuz it didn't occur ta me the girl wouldn't want out, either."

"She's not very nice, reallly," Rose said.

The Doctor snorted resentfully. "She's prob'ly right about a few things."

"Only one I can think of," Rose said.

There was a thunderous knock at the door.

"Which one?" Jack and the Doctor asked.

Rose grinned at the Doctor, her tongue poking through her teeth. "You do have a very impressive..."

"Open up in the name of the law," said a man's voice on the other side of the door.

"What do you want?" Jack asked.

"I have a legally binding document here," the man said.

"Let me see that," Jack answered, and jerked the door open. He took the document that the Doctor had signed earlier. It released the planet of liability in the event of death, and it also said that if the signer were successful, he agreed to marry the princess.

Jack handed it to the Doctor. The Time Lord frowned at the paper.

"So all that remains," said the bureaucrat who had handed them the document, "is positive identification. Which of you is the Doctor?"

Rose and the Doctor looked at each other. As one, they turned to Jack. "He is," they both said, in perfect unison.

*?*

Jack leaned against the coral support strut, trying to die of embarrassment in private. Rose wouldn't let him. She kept teasing him, trying to get the details of his failed plot out of him, and generally having a blast "taking the mickey", as she called it.

The Doctor was still laughing at him.

They were beautiful, they were brilliant, and they were completely evil. They were also much better at conning people than he was, which hardly seemed fair.

And yeah, ok, so they'd saved him from death, and a wife worse than death, but did they have to go about it that way?

The Doctor had read the document over, confessed his identity, and then, quite proudly, claimed he'd cheated. The bureaucrat had sputtered a protest, but the Doctor insisted, and since he'd cheated, he couldn't claim the hand of the princess, because the document said "legitimately succeed in the rescue." The Doctor had informed the man that since he'd taken a partner to help him, and not a servant, he'd cheated.

The bureaucrat maintained that since Jack was a eunuch, he didn't count as a partner. This had resulted in the bureaucrat getting a free and excruciatingly painful feel. Then, with increasing desperation, the little man had insisted that he wouldn't tell if they didn't.

At that point, Rose had promised to tell everyone, claiming to be a reporter for the local news. Then, she'd claimed credit for the whole con, insisting that she'd hired the Doctor and Jack to get through so she could tell the world how this operation actually worked.

The bureaucrat, being a highly civilized bureaucrat, and a very stressed one, hadn't even thought to threaten her. He'd instead broken into tears and admitted that the Doctor was actually the third successful suitor to claim cheating after meeting the princess. Tomorrow was the deadline, and he no longer knew what to do.

The Doctor had suggested he just let the girl rule, since she'd been trained to it for so long and so well. The grateful bureaucrat probably hadn't thought it through when he agreed it was a brilliant idea. Rose had agreed to be bribed to silence in exchange for having a woman on the throne at last. And then they'd run like hell.

"I just wanna know," said Rose, "why it never occurred to you that the princess would be a spoilt brat."

"Doctor!" Jack whined, "make her leave me alone."

"You've been here long enough ta know I don't get ta make Rose do anythin'," the Doctor said absently from where he was tinkering with the console.

"You could," Jack said, suggestively. "If you'd just..."

The Doctor looked up suddenly. "Thought you'd learned your lesson," he said.

Rose grinned. "Bet the people of Avalon will learn theirs," she said cheekily, offering the Doctor her hand.

He took it, then strode across the room and clapped his free hand on Jack's shoulder. "C'mon, Captain, you have the look of a man who could use a drink."

Jack smirked. Learn his lesson? That'd be the day. It was, after all, interesting what happened with two people when you got them drunk. Whistling a jaunty tune, he followed the Doctor and Rose down the corridor and, of course, continued to plot.

* * *


End file.
